Beyond the Horizon

by Bea Paige

  Pre-order here: https://books2read.com/AcademyStardom1

  From the gutter to the stars...

  Dance is in my blood.

  It’s what keeps me sane, out of trouble. It used to keep them out of trouble too.

  A group of boys I grew up with.

  Xeno, York, Zayn and Dax.

  We were a crew once and we ruled the clubs.

  Separate we were insanely good, together we were unbeatable. F*&ing on fire.

  I was their girl and they were my Breakers.

  Until they did something they promised they never would; break my heart.

  We were sixteen when they left me.

  You see, for kids like us, dance was all we had.

  Growing up in a rundown housing estate in London with no prospects can make you view the world differently.

  It can make you choose the wrong path.

  I chose dance, and they chose crime.

  Three years later I’ve won a scholarship to Stardom Academy. I try to forget my past.

  But how can I do that when the four boys who hurt me are back?

  And this time they’re following in my footsteps and joining the Academy too.

  **Freestyle is book one of this new gritty, contemporary reverse harem academy trilogy for 17+ readers and deals with adult themes and some subjects you may find upsetting. If you love dance, your men on the criminal side, alpha hot holes and the enemies-to-lovers trope, this is for you. Contains foul language and sexual scenes. **

  Delinquent Excerpt

  books2read.com/AcademyMisfits1

  Prologue

  Alicia Loi Chen which loosely means Great Noble Thunder… or some such crap like that.

  That’s me. That’s my name. Pretty fucking great, yeah? At least my mum thought so given the amount of times she tried to convince me it was.

  In her more lucid moments over the years, when she wasn’t messed up on some drug or other, she’d loved to weave magical tales about far away countries filled with dragons and other mythical creatures. For a long time, she had me convinced that she’d been a concubine to the Emperor of China, and I was their lovechild spirited off to England for safekeeping, my name chosen because I was born to some great Chinese dynasty.

  Of course, I realised pretty soon that she was full of shit.

  My empty stomach, threadbare clothes and dirty, flea-ridden flat we called home had proven that. Our true story, the one she tried to hide from, has only ever been a tale of woe… and it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

  Born on December 26, 1998 during one of the worst hurricanes to hit the UK for years, my fucked-up, drugged-up, heroin addict mother actually named me after the storm that raged beyond the single glazed windows of our shitty rundown council flat in Hackney. Her wails of pain from pushing me out of her ravaged, undernourished body matched those of the hurricane that wound its way through the feeble mould-ridden walls of our home. Tracy Carter, mum’s best friend and my surrogate mum growing up, had cradled my head as I slipped into the world wailing, my lungs bursting with rage at being born, my tiny little body already addicted to heroin. An angry baby junky, courtesy of my messed-up junky mum. Born with thunder inside me, thunder rolling outside, my name was fitting back then, I suppose. Except now I’ve shredded that name like a dirty threadbare jumper. I don’t live a fairy tale life and I’m not some emperor’s daughter, real or imagined.

  I’m just Asia. A name I chose for myself, not because of my heritage. And certainly not because of my mother’s addiction for the opium produced in the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia that finally killed her on my fourteenth birthday.

  Nope.

  I’m called Asia because the chip on my shoulder is as large as a fucking continent, and with good reason. I started my life fighting to live, and I’ve spent every day since doing the same damn thing… Fighting to survive.

  Every. Fucking. Day.

  I live in a permanent state of fight or flight, except I’m not a bird and I never run. I’ve got claws as sharp as the best of them, and a left hook to match. Truth is, this state of living is as unhealthy as the addiction I was born with. I’ve bounced from one foster home to another, interspersed with a few months in my mum’s care when she’d ‘got herself clean’, only to fall back into bad habits the second shit got hard. Heroin is a dirty drug that strips a human of their ability to function let alone bring up a kid. My mum was the worst kind of addict; weak, selfish and unable to fight for her children, herself even. I’ve pretty much brought myself up, and along the way have tried to get my younger brothers through this screwed up life we live. I’ve had to grow up fast.

  Now that I’m sixteen going on twenty-six, I’ve taken life by the proverbial balls and I’m deciding how to live it. I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t tempted to pick up a needle and shoot up just to get away from my crappy existence for a few short moments. But I refuse to be a junky like my mum. I refuse. She’d forced that on me as a newborn but I sure as fuck won’t make the same mistakes she made. I’m grateful that I don’t remember those long months being weaned off the drug, no more than a pitiful howling creature full of pain and anger.

  Years later, Tracy had told me that I screamed blue bloody murder those first few months of my life. My tiny little fists bunched up, ready to hit anyone who got too close. That was the first time my mum tried to give up heroin. She’d seen how I’d fought from the second I was born, and she did the same. Alongside me she got clean and for three years my mum managed to steer clear of the drug.

  But it didn’t last.

  The day after my third birthday mum left me in the care of Tracy with one goal in mind, to get well and truly off her face. She didn’t return for a month. When she did, she was unrecognisable.

  That was the first time I was taken into care.

  But unlike her, I will not allow myself to be weak. I won’t give in to the lingering need that still plagues me even though I don’t remember the feeling of being an addict, a state that was forced onto me without any choice or say in the matter.

  Growing up hasn’t been easy, I can assure you.

  These days the only source of joy in an endless line of disappointment and disillusion is my art, because not only is Asia my name now, it’s also my tag. You can see it spray painted in bright colours across the whole of Hackney. A piece of me brightening the stark and dirty streets of this inner-city London borough where I live.

  But like everything else in my life, that too has been taken away from me because some asshats deem it a crime to make something ugly into something beautiful.

  Truth be known, there’s never going to be a happily ever after for me. I was born during a storm after all, and we all know that storms only ever leave devastation in their wake.

  Chapter One

  “This is a fucking joke,” I mumble, just loud enough for my arsehole of a lawyer to hear.

  “Can it, Chen. Sit up, take note and don’t say a damn thing,” my lawyer hisses at me.

  Sitting here now in the magistrates’ court with my lawyer, who I’m pretty sure is ready to hang me so he can get back home to his two point five kids and perfect middle class wife, I wait for the verdict.

  A clock ticks loudly, the sound of a pen tapping against the table and the constant low hum of my blood pulsing in my ears makes it impossible to concentrate.

  “Sit up, Alicia, pay attention,” my lawyer snaps, repeating the demand under his breath once more.

  I huff, feigning boredom and make a point at staring at a spot just beyond the ancient judge as he waffles on about my ‘crimes’ and my poor choices in life like his shit don’t stink. Dickhead.

  Well he, like all the other adults I’ve ever come across in life, can go fuck themselves. I was doing the shopkeeper a favour by brightening his ugly back wall with my graffiti art. I’m pretty sure he gets way more customers now because of it anyway. He should be thanking me. Instead, here I am waiting on this fat balding twat of a judge to make a decision about my life,
just like all the other bastards I’ve had to endure these past sixteen years. I wish I was turning eighteen this year instead of next, maybe then I could claw back some of the control I crave. As it is, I’ve got to wait another fifteen months until that happens. I’m just another kid who’s the property of the state right now.

  “Breaking and entering, criminal damage, graffitiing, possession of marijuana, anti-social behaviour. The list goes on and on, Alicia…” the judge drones on. His words mingle with the memory of all the other disappointed tirades I’ve had to listen to over the years from social workers, teachers, lawyers and the endless list of control freaks that seem to want to plague my life with rules and fucking restrictions.

  It's not like I need reminding of my petty crimes. I know what I’ve done and frankly, I’d do it again given half the chance. I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t even break into the store really, given Mr Patel stupidly left the back entrance open. And yeah, so I smoked some weed. What teenager doesn’t these days? I’m betting this arsehole next to me drinks himself into a coma most nights on some thousand-pound bottle of brandy to blot out some shit or other that he wants to forget. So, what’s the difference? I smoke a little weed, big deal. At least I don’t shoot up to get a kick.

  “You’re on a dangerous path, young lady, one that will lead to a life of crime and imprisonment if you continue on as you are. Do you want that for yourself?” the judge asks me, his bushy eyebrows like great big caterpillars kissing as he frowns. Talk about condescending. I shrug and look away to avoid further eye-contact, making a non-committal sound.

  “You want this life for yourself?” he accuses, trying to get a reaction.

  Folding my arms across my chest, I shift in my seat, refusing to engage.

  Yep, that’s exactly what I want, arsehole. In fact, being a criminal was the first job of choice on my list of things I wanted to be when I grew up. Actually, being a princess was top of that stupid list my mother had made me write. All because of her crazy stories and my need to please her. I’d have done anything to stop her from picking up a needle and shooting up.

  “There’s nothing you’d like to say?” he persists.

  “No.” I manage to bite out.

  Both he and my lawyer make a distasteful noise at my lack of understanding or care. Their opinion of me is plain for all to see. I’m just another one of those kids who’s a drain on the system. Drug-addict mother, absent father, benefit generation, uneducated, lazy, foolhardy. I’m the shit on their shoe. I’m worthless. Yeah, I get it.

  “This is your last chance,” the judge says, and I’m not sure whether he’s now referring to my opportunity to speak or my proverbial last chance in life.

  My lawyer, Fitzpatrick or something equally as fucking posh, nudges me in the side. “Alicia, now’s the time to get your point across. Don’t mess this up.”

  I turn to face him, sucking on my lip ring and giving him my best ‘I don’t give a fuck’ stare. I clear my throat, finally making eye-contact with the judge.

  “Fuck you,” I murmur.

  Fitzpatrick stiffens. I can feel the annoyance and judgement rolling off him, battering against me as I resolutely ignore his incredulous look. Once he gets over the shock, I’m betting he’s going to love telling his perfect family about the messed-up kid who gave the judge a big fat “fuck you.” I know what he thinks when he looks at me; I’m the warning to his children. I’m the horror story of a life gone tits-up. You smoke weed, you’ll end up like her. You wear those clothes; you’re asking to be treated a certain way. You live on a council estate; you’re bound to grow up a junky or a fucking criminal. I see it in his eyes, in the eyes of all the adults who make a snap judgement about the person I am based on the way I look.

  Fuckwads.

  “That’s all you have to say?” the judge responds.

  But instead of slapping my arse with another punishment, he just sighs heavily as though he’s just as jaded with the world as I am. I watch as he clasps his hands together and regards me for a long time before speaking.

  “Your crime holds a minimum sentence of eighteen months in juvenile prison, but both your social worker and lawyer have petitioned for a lesser sentence. For some reason they seem to think you’re salvageable. Despite your appearance and lack of any remorse for your actions, I’m going to believe them.”

  I snort, folding my arms across my chest ignoring the pounding beat of my heart and the anger bubbling inside, the hurricane of rage I was born with is never very far away. I know for a fact my lawyer doesn’t give a crap about me, and my social worker? Ha! Don’t make me laugh. That bitch will be glad to see the back of me. I’m pretty sure she’d rather see me locked up; my case file neatly filed away in some cabinet in her office never to be looked at again.

  “You come to my court dressed like that,” he says wrinkling his nose at my ripped jeans, Doc Martens and see through mesh top.

  “At least I wore a bra,” I snarl under my breath, glancing at Fitzpatrick whose jaw tightens in anger.

  “You’ve not even bothered to make an effort to present yourself in a suitable manor…” the judge continues, his words lost behind a growing haze of rage that I can’t seem to dampen right now.

  What the fuck has my appearance got to do with it? I have blue hair, a nose stud, lip ring and tattoos and that immediately makes me a leper to society, does it? All these thoughts make acid of my blood as he blithers on, but I don’t show how I feel. On the outside I’m cold, disinterested, maintaining a sense of aloofness. It’s my ‘don’t give a shit’ attitude that I’ve perfected over the years. Besides, I’m not really worried about me, I can take a stint in juvie. At least I’ll get a place to sleep every night and food in my belly. I’m told they even have video games. Sounds like heaven to me. The only thing I don’t like about a prison sentence is that I worry for my little brothers and how they’ll survive without my visits. They might be living in a different foster care home than me (not that I stay in my own very often), but I still get to visit them regularly. Eighteen months in prison is a long time to go without seeing them both. That thought makes my mouth go dry and my hands turn clammy.

  “Despite all of that,” he continues, whilst a buzzing fills my ears making it hard for me to actually hear what he’s saying, “I’m giving you one final chance to change your ways. You will attend Oceanside Academy in Hastings.”

  My gaze snaps up to meet his. Oceanside Academy in Hastings? How is that any better than a prison sentence? I’ve heard about that place, a reform school for fucked-up kids just like me, but that’s not even the worst part. It’s a residential school, miles away from my little brothers. Is this prick insane? Sitting forward in my chair, my mouth pops open, ready to bombard this shit-stain of a man with my response. But Fitzpatrick grabs my arm and squeezes.

  “Don’t be foolish,” he hisses.

  I’m about to tell him to get lost too when my brain finally catches up with the rest of what the judge is saying. His words somehow penetrating the anger I feel.

  “You’ll be able to return home during the term breaks to ensure you’re still able to maintain a relationship with your siblings. I’m told that they’re your one saving grace…”

  The judge lets that statement hang in the air, and it successfully shuts me up. We make eye contact, and he narrows his eyes at me. But of course, I should’ve known it comes with a caveat, the motherfucker isn’t stupid.

  “This is a suspended sentence, Alicia. If you mess up, or you don’t meet your obligations at the academy then I can and will enforce the full sentence and you’ll find yourself in prison as soon as you can whip out your spray can and tag your name on a wall. There will be no visitation rights then. None. Do I make myself clear?”

  Clenching my jaw and trying my best not to tell the judge what I really think of him, I simply nod my head. “I understand.”

  And just like that my life is upended once more.

  Outside the courtroom, Fitzpatrick turns to me and rest
s his hand on my arm. I look at his fingers pressing into my skin, then him with distaste, a scowl drawing my lips up in a sneer. His eyes widen as though he truly thinks I’m about to bite. He releases his hold. Finally, the twat understands me.

  “You start the new term in one week. I suggest you spend the time making your goodbyes and thinking about what you want out of life, Alicia. Whether you choose to believe it or not, this is an opportunity, not a sentence. Make the most of it, and whatever you do, don’t run.”

  With that he turns on his heel and walks away from me. I watch him leave with dispassion. “Save your pep talks for someone who actually gives a shit,” I call out after him, drawing more snotty glares from the staff milling about.

  On the other side of the reception area, someone barks out a laugh. A boy around my age looks at me from beneath his black hoody jumper. I can barely see his features beneath the shade of his hood, but I see enough to get my measure of him. Besides, the attitude he gives off ensures everyone milling around gives him a wide berth. I’m pretty sure he’s a misunderstood ‘arsehole’ just like me. Or given the shit-eating grin that’s rapidly widening across his face, just an arsehole. Folding my arms across my chest defensively and cocking my hip and eyebrow, I wait. He raises his hand, his fingers curled into his palm.

  “Wanker,” he mouths, moving his fist from side to side imitating a wank. His gaze slides to the retreating back of my lawyer before he smirks at me then pulls back his hood so I can get a better look at his face.

  It's a good face. Handsome in a kind of ‘lock up your daughters and your family jewels’ way. Dark blonde hair falls over his baby blue eyes that are a little too all-knowing to be innocent. I already know from that one glance, as our eyes meet, that he’s seen and done shit that would rival any adult in this building. Face of an angel, mind of a sinner, and the type of person I avoid at all costs.

  Swiping his hair back off his forehead, he gives me a wink which I resolutely ignore in my calculated perusal of him. He has a light tan, as though he spends a lot of time out in the sun, and he’s tall, fit, with wide shoulders and a slim waist. Honestly, he’d be better served on a beach with a surfboard, than in a magistrates’ court in Hackney, but life sucks so here we are.